What were the effects of the opening of the Yunnan-Vietnam Railway on Yunnan's economy, industry and life?

The opening of the Yunnan-Vietnam Railway has made Yunnan the closest region to the sea in inland southwest China overnight. In the past, through the Yunnan-Vietnam Road, from Kunming to Haiphong, Vietnam, at least a month's time, but the train opened, three days to arrive. Qing Dynasty, the last "scholar" Yuan Jiagu is Yunnan, when he returned to his hometown in October 1910, is through the Yunnan-Vietnam Railway. In the past, he traveled from his hometown to Beijing to take the exams, which took at least two months, but this time he returned to his hometown, but it took less than half a month, which made him very emotional, and predicted that this railroad would bring great changes to Yunnan.

History is just as Yuan Jiangu predicted. Although the switching of Mengzi in 1889 can be seen as the beginning of Yunnan's modernization, the impact of Western industrial civilization on Yunnan didn't really begin to be felt until after the opening of the Yunnan-Vietnam Railway.

Historians today can see more clearly the significance of the railroad 100 years ago. Western industrial products from all over the world arrived in Haiphong, Vietnam, and were then transported via the Yunnan-Vietnam Railway to Kunming, where they flowed to the entire southwest region. It was the areas along the railroad that benefited most directly.

Taking Kunming as an example, before the opening of the train, Kunming's external transportation only a few stagecoach routes, daily consumption of local products for the province, not much foreign goods are also limited to the surrounding provinces. After the opening of the train, Kunming municipal construction, consumption habits, mindset unprecedented changes. Some unheard of commodities began to appear in the life of Kunming people, canned food, champagne, coffee, watches, sewing machines, cosmetics began to be accepted and consumed by some rich families; the city began to appear many Western-style or Chinese and Western-style buildings, today's Yunnan University, Huize courtyard is a representative of the French architecture; telephone, electric light, running water, cars, bicycles also appeared one after another in the city; the society gradually popularized the Western-style life style. Western lifestyle gradually became popular, cafes, bars, movie theaters became places of consumption for the public, new schools began to spread, girls can also enter the school, to receive a new education.

According to rough statistics, from 1910 to 1923, Kunming City, the opening of new hotels, foreign banks as many as thirty or forty. The same period in Guangzhou, there are only a dozen foreign banks, the prestige of Kunming, "comparable to Hong Kong".

Writer Ai Wu in his "A Lesson in Philosophy of Life" in this description: "Yunnan-Vietnam Railway, the artery, constantly injected with French blood, British blood ...... the original is a village girl face of the city of mountainous country (Kunming), out into a beautiful modern lady. "

Industrial start

After the opening of the railroad, due to the dumping of large quantities of cheap cotton textiles, so that the traditional farming and weaving combination of Yunnan's family economy was hit, which led to the separation of small agriculture and cottage industry. At the same time, rice, brown sugar, tea, ham and other local specialties such as the rapid rise in the number of exports, but also changed the structure of Yunnan agriculture; in order to adapt to the import and export trade, some new economic entities such as companies, public factories began to appear. Along with this, the traditional merchant organizations began to be replaced by chambers of commerce and new-style guilds, and the financial system was also upgraded from the ticket, money changers to banks, and financial capital began to penetrate into the emerging industrial sector. The traditional social strata also began to show a new division, national entrepreneurs and new intellectuals gradually grew up. New education and new ideas began to spread widely in Yunnan.

In this process, the construction of towns and cities along the railroad lines developed rapidly. Taking Bisezhai as an example, this remote village, which was inhabited by only a few families at the end of the Qing Dynasty, became a transportation hub after the opening of the railroad. Goods originally transported by the Red River waterway are transshipped here, resulting in a short period of time for this remote village miraculously prospered. In this village of only 4 square kilometers, gathered the French, British, American, German, Japanese, Greek, Vietnamese and other nationalities of different languages, companies, foreign banks, hotels, cafes, post offices, tax offices have been set up, for a time, this place has become a paradise for adventurers.

Also in this process, since the Qin and Han dynasties have become the main transportation of Yunnan and the outside world of the horse gangs, due to the impact of the railroad and the rapid decline. This provoked the dissatisfaction of the local people, in the "blocking the ocean to repair the road" failed, Mengzi, a old, Shiping and other places of the gentry and merchants began to fund the formation of the railroad company, and the construction of China's first sovereignty of the most complete private railroad - a Bishi Railway, the 117-kilometer-long railroad to the south of Yunnan, the most important part of the country's transportation system. The 117-kilometer-long railroad linked several of the richest cities in southern Yunnan and intersected with the Yunnan-Vietnam Railway at Bisezhai.

Between 1910 and 1923, 55 factories of various kinds were built in Yunnan, a 3.7-fold increase in the number of enterprises compared with 1909. Among them, including the world-renowned "tin capital" reputation of the old tin mining company. At the same time, China's first hydroelectric power plant, Kunming Shilongba Hydroelectric Power Station, was completed, and its Siemens generator sets imported from Europe were shipped to Kunming via the Yunnan-Vietnam Railway. After the power plant was in operation, a water supply plant was set up in Kunming in 1920, bringing the era of steam into the era of electricity.

China's Dunkirk

July 1937, Japan launched a war of aggression against China, and soon half of the country fell. At the beginning of the war, the Yunnan-Vietnam Railway once became the only transportation line connecting the southwestern rear with overseas, and a large number of military, industrial production, medicine and other materials were transported into the rear of China by this line.

Kunming, as the capital of Yunnan Province in the southwestern rear, attracted many enterprises to relocate here, and a large amount of capital, equipment and talents entered Kunming through the Yunnan-Vietnam Railway, which not only preserved the strength of China's industrial development, but also vigorously pushed forward the process of modernization of Kunming's industry, thus laying the foundation for the layout and development of Kunming's modern industry at one fell swoop.

According to the statistics of the Ministry of Economy of the National Government, in 1940, the number of major factories and enterprises in Kunming had reached 80, the second highest number of inward relocations after those in Chongqing and Chuanzhong, and the number of factory and mining workers had increased from more than 2,000 before the war to more than 30,000 people.

The inward migration through the Yunnan-Vietnam Railway also included students and faculty from the Southwest Associated Universities, which has been called "China's best university". After the fall of Nanjing, by the Tsinghua University, Peking University, Nankai University in Changsha formed a temporary university after repeated studies, decided to move to Kunming, Yunnan, the reason why the choice of Yunnan, rather than at that time issued a gracious invitation to Guangxi, Chongqing, one is because Kunming is located in the southwest, farther away from the front line, and at the same time can be far away from the accompanying capital of Chongqing, to maintain academic independence; the other reason is the existence of the Yunnan-Yueyang Railway, the university can Another reason is the existence of the Yunnan-Yueyue Railway, by which the school can maintain transportation with overseas and facilitate the purchase of books and equipment.

In February 1938, the faculty and students of the Provisional University left Changsha and entered Yunnan, and most of them arrived in Kunming via the Yunnan-Vietnam Railway to establish the "National Southwest United University". The grammar school of the "United University" also once settled in the Yunnan-Vietnam Railway in the city of Mengzi Gelu Shi, Mengzi Customs, the Zhou family residence and other places.

At one time, a large number of China's most prestigious writers and scholars gathered in Kunming, making it the cultural fortress of China during the war.

In 1940, as the Japanese army invaded Vietnam, in order to prevent the Japanese army from invading Yunnan along the Yunnan-Vietnam Railway, the national government ordered to blow up the Sino-Vietnamese Hekou Bridge and dismantle the railroad tracks from Hekou to Bisezhai. 1946, after the negotiation between China and France, France handed over sovereignty of the Yunnan section of the Yunnan-Vietnam Railway and the right to operate it to China. After the founding of New China, the Yunnan-Vietnam Railway, which had been interrupted for more than ten years, was repaired and reopened to traffic in 1957 and has been in operation ever since.

In the first 30 years after the opening of the railroad, it became the main channel of transportation between Yunnan and the outside world, which not only directly promoted the modernization process of Yunnan, but also became the "Dunkirk" of China during the Anti-Japanese War, and became the lifeline of the national war of resistance.

It can be said that without the Yunnan-Vietnam Railway, Yunnan's modern history may be another process.